Opinion

Genius gamechanger has thrown down the gauntlet

Didn’t teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg cause a stir last week? Whether you welcomed her emotional speech to the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York or rolled your eyes, it was impossible to ignore her. And it’s going to be harder to ignore her in the future.

As a communications professional, it’s been fascinating to watch the ''arc of outrage'' over the last week. With the aim of making a significant impact, her setting up of the issue and its execution, she scores a 10 out of 10. And her handling of the fallout - flawless.

Thousands of people attended the global climate strike in Sydney.Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

It was a stroke of genius to hold the most recent climate strike on the Friday before the Summit. Not only did 300,000 Aussie kids and adults turn out around the country, organisers say four million people went to 6000 events held in more than 1000 cities across 185 countries.

Getting people to transition from expressing their concerns via a keyboard to doing something that requires actual effort is hard. What Thunberg and her allies achieved was quite a power move.

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She then absorbed the attention of the world’s media around the day-long meeting by first filing a human rights complaint against Germany, France, Brazil, Argentina and Turkey for failing to take adequate action to combat climate change. And her “how dare you” speech will go down as one of the more significant moments of the year. An interesting sidepoint - Thunberg’s speech was just 495 words. She certainly got a lot of bang for her per-word buck.

And then there was the blowback. From sarcastic tweets from US President Donald Trump to PM Scott Morrison’s “let kids be kids” assessment, Thunberg copped a lot of criticism from every possible angle. Her response? “I guess they must simply feel so threatened by us,” she tweeted.

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She also treated the adulation from like-minded Hollywood celebrities, politicians and business leaders with the same quasi-indifference. She says she’s just a kid “promoting science”, a position that is so obvious and possibly unremarkable to her she can’t accept why anyone would believe or behave differently.

It was that strength of belief in the cause that allowed her to pull off what many couldn’t - a zero-carbon emissions voyage to the Big Apple to attend the Summit. On anyone else, it would look like a flimsy stunt. But her uncompromising position on the issue and commitment to the cause makes her very difficult to counter.

So what do those who are less pure on the issue do to navigate this increasingly tricky space? What, for example, do the airlines do when Greta has clearly pointed out to them they are a source of the problem by taking a boat rather than a plane for her international travel?

You can imagine this very discussion happening around the boardrooms and management teams of the major aviation companies internationally as we speak. And you can also see how those who sought to counter her hardline “climate emergency” message fared this week, and how they might wonder how they're going to plot a way through it. And for that, here’s a three-point plan.

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The first thing to understand is what your exposure to the problem is. In raw numbers, the global aviation industry produces around 2 per cent of all human-induced carbon dioxide emissions - which is more than Australia’s contribution. For the airlines, managing carbon emissions is a growing problem. For example, a report out this week said aviation is likely to become the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK by 2050.

Then, you need to work out what your customers think. It would be likely that the majority of the airlines’ customers are concerned about the price they pay for their ticket and convenience of the service when they’re choosing one flight over another. A slim segment would look at the airlines’ environmental credentials as the thing that guides their choices. But it’s safe to assume that segment will grow, but it’s by how much that the airlines will want to know.

Which leads to the final point: who do the airlines need to talk to? Who needs to know that ''we’re taking this seriously and we’re doing something about it'' ? Chances are it’s regulators, customers, shareholders and activists. That’s a lot of stakeholders who need attention.

One thing is certain in an exercise like this; communicating complicated messages requires persistence and patience. And you have to have little expectation of a pat on the back. Most people will think that what you’re spruiking are things you should be doing anyway. But it is better to be known for taking care of business than be caught flat-footed.

That has never been more true than now, with gamechangers like Greta Thunberg throwing down the gauntlet and refusing to play by the rules.

Claire Kimball is the founder of The Squiz, a free weekday news email. She was formerly press secretary to Tony Abbott and communications director for Woolworths Group.